Altruistic Punishment

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Institution
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This article titled Altruistic Punishment in Humans provides an interesting reading. After reading the article, several things come to mind. First, I find the idea of members of the society participating in activities that benefit the whole society believable. This definitely comes from the idea of sharing that is inherent in most cultures.
My problem with the article comes from the concept of altruistic punishment that is pointed out in the article. While it is true that this took place, I strongly believe that the society only punished a small fraction of the society which they did not like. This is more of a scenario of some people who have done something wrong being punished repeatedly. The fact that the research points out that 34.3% of the people quoted in the research were punished more than five times is an indication that the group punishment was only centered on a few members of the society who were considered to be misfits.
I also find the issue of punishment producing a common good for the whole population a questionable idea. Largely, human beings are competitors with each one of them seeking to better their enterprise. It would, therefore, be ironical to think that anyone would want to make an investment that gives them equality with their competitors. While this might be the case, I strongly believe that such people only invested a part of their wealth that still gave them leverage over the rest of the public. It would also be logical to conc...